


my heart has no pity on me

by theMightyPen



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, F/M, Introspection, POV Male Character, this is not Bruce/Nat bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:51:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5096378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/pseuds/theMightyPen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, monsters are scared," said Lettie. "That's why they're monsters." (Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane)</p>
            </blockquote>





	my heart has no pity on me

* * *

 

_"There's no place on Earth I can go where I'm not a monster."_

But then, that's not exactly true, is it?

There is a place, a place where names like 'monster' and 'scientist' and 'fugitive' have no importance, where they become just words on a page, empty of all meaning. You haven't let yourself think of it in a long time. It may not even be yours anymore. It may only exist only in your memories. But it _does_ , in fact, exist.

You've always been good at lying to yourself. So you tell yourself that there is nowhere you can turn to, no mountain high enough, no ocean deep enough for you to escape this Thing inside of you. This Thing that is both bigger and better than you are, but also the worst part of yourself, the part of yourself you'd prefer to hide away from everyone, even the ones who claim to love you.

How can they? Who could _ever_ love a beast?

So it's just you and Him. The Monster. The _Hulk_. You and Him, trapped in the shell of what was once a scientist, forever.

But the place, _that place._..

In that place there could be space for both You, the Monster, and Him, the Monster, because it made no distinction between the two. 'Monster' and 'scientist' and 'fugitive' were terms that didn't matter, that fell away, because there was no room for them there, no use for names of that sort.

There, in that place, there is only room for you to be Bruce. 

It's small. And warm. Framed by pale skin and dark hair and a thin strand of silver worth more than any riches anyone could ever offer you.

It's funny, sometimes, what the mind remembers.

That of all the things that your subconscious could dwell on, that the dip of Betty's clavicle is where you felt safest, where you would go back to if you could. You could be anywhere in the world--in Tony's Tower, a SHIELD hovercraft, a jail cell boxed up like the **Monster** you are--and it would be bearable, if only you could press your face there, just for a moment.

_"But then it's still YOU inside of it."_

You, the Monster, Him, the Monster; it doesn't matter. Either one would give anything, anything in the world, to be in that place again. To lay your head against her, listen to her heartbeat, and be just _Bruce_ again, or just the Hulk, because it didn't matter which one you were at the moment.

"You're two sides of the same coin," she'd whispered, that one night of peace you'd somehow managed to find in that horrible motel, "if he can keep you safe and you can keep him safe when I can't, what more could I possibly ask for?"

You could think of a hell of a lot of other things you could ask for. But that's why Betty's the better person between the two of you, why you're out accidentally creating murder bots and letting the Other Guy out to tear robots to pieces and not telling Natasha the truth when she says there's nowhere she's not a Monster, too.

Because while that may be true for her in her own head, it's not true for you, not really.

But then, you've always been very good at lying to yourself, haven't you?

 

* * *

 


End file.
